Surely, the point of this is that advertisers/broadcasters aren't willing to pay the big bucks if no records are being broken. Easiest way around that is to find an excuse to expunge them all and trouser the extra cash.

Its not like sports administrators haven't done things in the past purely to line their own pockets.

Record book mingling is a shameful attempt at keeping the cake (pretending athletics has been cleans) and eating it too (having world records constantly broken).

The dope fest called sub 2hr mara attempt beckons and here' tucker's take from pacing angle (dope implications have been discussed before). I agree with him that actually breaking the barrier is highly unlikely - the 2.03s are already full retard stuff and done quite recently. Also find it a reasonable guess that a DNF is as likely as the best case scenario, ie 2.02 for kipchoge.

Would be interesting to see the first graph disaggregated for per and post epo eras, split roughly from 1990 or so. But even as it stands, one could hazard a guess that blood doping (refills and epo, say, post 1990)has allowed for a more even pacing strategy than in prior eras.

"Here's a nutty statistic ahead of the #breaking2 attempt: In the 90 fastest winning marathons ever, a 5km segment faster than 14:13 has only been run 10 times. That's 10 out of 720 segments for those 90 race winners. The target pace to break 2 hours this weekend is 14:13 per 5km. They'll have to average for a marathon what has only been done for a single 5km segment ten times in the fastest 90 marathon victories ever."

meat puppet wrote:Record book mingling is a shameful attempt at keeping the cake (pretending athletics has been cleans) and eating it too (having world records constantly broken).

The dope fest called sub 2hr mara attempt beckons and here' tucker's take from pacing angle (dope implications have been discussed before). I agree with him that actually breaking the barrier is highly unlikely - the 2.03s are already full retard stuff and done quite recently. Also find it a reasonable guess that a DNF is as likely as the best case scenario, ie 2.02 for kipchoge.

Would be interesting to see the first graph disaggregated for per and post epo eras, split roughly from 1990 or so. But even as it stands, one could hazard a guess that blood doping (refills and epo, say, post 1990)has allowed for a more even pacing strategy than in prior eras.

"Here's a nutty statistic ahead of the #breaking2 attempt: In the 90 fastest winning marathons ever, a 5km segment faster than 14:13 has only been run 10 times. That's 10 out of 720 segments for those 90 race winners. The target pace to break 2 hours this weekend is 14:13 per 5km. They'll have to average for a marathon what has only been done for a single 5km segment ten times in the fastest 90 marathon victories ever."

Have their hero bolt do the marathon. Eat chicken nuggets before hand like he always does.

He'll break the 2 hrs and we'll know its clean because a) hes tall which is better than doping and b) he doesn't look like schwarzeneger so he must be clean

Of all the records which may be expunged, which are you most happy about, and which saddens you?

For me it is a tie between the women's 400m and 800m for most happy about, utterly implausible.Saddest, the men's long jump, whether you think anyone was clean or not, that competition was the athletics version of Lemond v Fignon, utterly compelling.

I think they should only take away Paula's record, just to see her reaction.

I think they should keep Ben Johnson's record, and give back his gold from Seoul. Just about everyone in that final was doping/was later caught and/or suspended, or have been suspected to, and in the case of Carl Lewis, the man that finished second and later was upgraded to first, several positive tests just that summer alone!

Singer01 wrote:Of all the records which may be expunged, which are you most happy about, and which saddens you?

For me it is a tie between the women's 400m and 800m for most happy about, utterly implausible.Saddest, the men's long jump, whether you think anyone was clean or not, that competition was the athletics version of Lemond v Fignon, utterly compelling.

One of my ex-clubmates who is still winning medals at the World Mastersand named her only daughter Stefka might be bummed about the women'shigh jump...but I'd not be too disappointed if Blanka was given the WR.

There are plenty of Olympic records that would be affected if this changeincluded Olympic records too...haven't heard/read that it will though.

Singer01 wrote:Of all the records which may be expunged, which are you most happy about, and which saddens you?

For me it is a tie between the women's 400m and 800m for most happy about, utterly implausible.Saddest, the men's long jump, whether you think anyone was clean or not, that competition was the athletics version of Lemond v Fignon, utterly compelling.

One of my ex-clubmates who is still winning medals at the World Mastersand named her only daughter Stefka might be bummed about the women'shigh jump...but I'd not be too disappointed if Blanka was given the WR.

There are plenty of Olympic records that would be affected if this changeincluded Olympic records too...haven't heard/read that it will though.te/quote]

You would have to reset Olympic records as you can't have an Olympic Record better than a World Record. In fact you would have to reset just about everything, all area records, championship records, course records, masters records, junior records, anything that comes under the IAAF, at least that's the way I see it.

I suspect Al Oerter was using steroids in the 1950's (first gold medal 1956). The American sprinters of the 1960's must also be considered suspicious given the symbiotic links between track and field and professional football. Jim Hines (1968 100m gold) was the classic example of this.

For new generations, more attainable records (with today's WADA code and enforcement) will lure athletes less strongly to the dark side. Some national records I am happy to see go. One in particular set at the dirtiest of OG's, before the 50% rule, before EPO detection. Hardly anyone has come close since. Recently only an unbeatable hermafrodite, dipped under it just slightly. Despite a quarter century of track and shoe development, not to speak of deeply more advanced nutricional and training knowledge. Such records, even if set by a freak of nature rather than the garden variety doper (much more prevalent), is best reset. New WR attempts can and should be supported by sponsors.

New national, European and world records need to be tested with a multitude of samples, sent to multiple labs. The labs should be a lottery of sorts perhaps. In a age of $1500 Bicoin, surely someone can come up with a reliable randomizer. Records deserve more scrutiny. And back testing. So not just an A and B sample. Not stored in one place. Proper scrutiny.